What is "btrieve"

Btrieve is a transactional database ( navigational database) software product. It is based on Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM), which is a way of storing data for fast retrieval. There have been several versions of the product for DOS, Linux, older versions of Microsoft Windows, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, 32-bit IBM OS/2 and for Novell NetWare.

It was originally a record manager published by SoftCraft. Btrieve was written by Doug Woodward and Nancy Woodward and initial funding was provided in part by Doug's brother Loyd Woodward. Around the same time as the release of the first IBM PCs, Doug received 50% of the company as a wedding gift and later purchased the remainder from his brother. After gaining market share and popularity, it was acquired from Doug and Nancy Woodward by Novell in 1987, for integration into their Netware operating system in addition to continuing with the MS-DOS version. The product gained significant market share as a database embedded in mid-market applications in addition to being embedded in every copy of NetWare 2.x, 3.x and 4.x since it was available on every NetWare network. After some reorganization within Novell, it was decided in 1994 to spin off the product and technology to Doug and Nancy Woodward along with Ron Harris, to be developed by a new company known as Btrieve Technologies, Inc. (BTI).

Btrieve was modularized starting with version 6.15 and became one of two database front-ends that plugged into a standard software interface called the Micro-Kernel Database Engine. The Btrieve front-end supported the Btrieve API and the other front-end was called Scalable SQL, a relational database product based upon the MKDE that used its own variety of Structured Query Language, otherwise known as SQL. After these versions were released (Btrieve 6.15 and ScalableSQL v4) the company was renamed to Pervasive Software prior to their IPO. Shortly thereafter the Btrieve and ScalableSQL products were combined into the products now known and sold as Pervasive.SQL or PSQL. Btrieve continued for a few years while ScalableSQL was quickly dropped. Customers were encouraged to upgrade to Pervasive.SQL which supported both SQL and Btrieve applications.